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PHRENOLOGY, .1 



AND OTHER 



F^OEMS 



BY DANIEL PARKER. 



" They send \is some tough old stick of a man, who is not to be silenced or insult- 
ed by a mob — one who mobs the mob." — Emerson. 
. * " .• 

If of this you can see the " cause in the phenomena," why, very well. Consider 
it ! Wc will Ife'avp other lessons for other occasions. 



LOWELL : 

S. W. HUSE 6c CO., (Vox Populi Office) BOOK PRINT.^KS. 

1859. 



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PHRENOLOGY, 



AND OTHER 



POEMS. 



BY DANIEL PAEKEE. 



/Q;7^^ 



" They send us some tough old stick of a man, who is not to be silenced or insult- 
ed by a mob — one who mobs the mob." — ^Emersoij". 



If of this you can see the " cause in the phenomena," why, very well. Consider 
it ! "We will leave other lessons for other occasions. 



LOWELL : 
W. HUSE & CO., (Vox Populi Office) BOOK PRINTERS. 
1859. 






Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 

By Daniel Parker, M. D., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts, 



POEM ON PHRENOLOGY. 



1 am a Phrenologist, and can tell what you are good for ; 

I am a Physiognomist, and can tell your temper by your features ; 

I am a Physiologist, and can tell your motive powers, 

How they are sustained, and how and where they will lead you. 

I see all kinds of heads, from the beetle he^d up to the god-head ; 

All kinds of faces, from the monkey-face up to the god-and-man face ; 

All kinds of expressions, from the no-meaning up to the all-meaning — 

From low Individualities up to true Personalities; 

They all stand for something, even the stupidest of them, 

Each one is the seat of an immortal soul of priceless worth, 

Each one contains what has taxed all the infinite variety 

Of parental powers of father God and mother Earth to produce | 

Each one has drawn from the infinite variety of the 

Concentrated essences of all things, and manifests what it has. 

There is every variety of grade of good, better, and best ; 

Each has a purpose and use, and stands for more than is known of j 

Each one is of equal value in the eye of the Highest, 

From whose grasp no one can get loose, or be lost ; 

Each one has responsibilities according to gifts ; 

Each one has what he wants, or shall have, sometime, 

More certainly than the superficial are mindful of. 

Such as have suitable garments and other embellishments' 

May go up and feast with the Master of the House — 

Such as have not, may ivait and consider in lower rooms. 

You shall be called and shall go up as your turns come, 

Wait hopefully and you shall be sooner or later comforted, 

You may be as certain of that as of any other certainty. 

Only be careful that you do not have to wait too long, 

• AMATIVE. 

Then you of the amative and social complexion and expression, 

Who love society, and love to make it worth loving and living for, 

Who can fall wholly into love, and so see all things lovely, 

Can love one first and better than any or all others, 

And can so see all the world wear a solemn aspect of beauty. 

See in the house of the loved one a Holy Temple, 

Hear a holy and beautiful spirit speak out of all things — 

Speak from the walls, pictures, musical instruments, chairs, and tables, 

Hear it by the way-side and over all the landscape. 



Hear the grass, leaves, flowers, and birds whisper of immortality. 
Who can see everywhere something lovable and so to be loved, 
Can be so inspired, and speak beautiful thoughts in beautiful words, 
Can dream of all sufficient joys and live them over and over again. 
Can float away on moonbeams and listen to the stars, 
Can fly in spirit to Elysian fields and gardens, 
Whilst the body unconsciously walks or rests by the way-side, 
Can be speechless yet say the most unutterable things, 
Can be silent from fulness of joy in your love of such, 
Can enjoy that, and after that stand alone in the world, 
Knowing your tears disturb no hilarities or festivals, 
Still a flower in God's garden, giving and receiving fragrance. 
Who have hearts that may be wrung without breaking, 
Hearts beating manliness inside, with God over and under all. 
Who can love all your relationships above, around, and below, 
Love your wives and children intensely and forever. 
You young men and women who are vigorous and healthy, 
Have holy connubial attachments, and gratify them, 
Who are uncontrollable apart, and harmonious together. 
Who can produce beautiful and healthy sons and daughters, 
Who can make the earth flowery, fruitful, and blessed — 
You are welcome, and may go up. 

You who never fall into love, and to whom nothing appears lovely. 
Who see no aspect of holiness or beauty worn anywhere, 
Who never hear any voices from the grass, leaves, or flowers. 
Who know no higher gospel than that of the market-place, 
Who feel no higher inspiration than comes of dollars and cents. 
Who look for all-sufficient joys and blessedness from such, 
See nothing in the stars but lights for the night. 
See nothing inapplicable to the multiplication table. 
Love no ciphering but addition and multiplication, 
Whose hearts beat high or low according to price-currents, 
Who love your wives and children on profit-and-lo«s principles j 
You of the selfish type, with only boreal heat, 
No open arms or souls for imperishable goods. 
Or sympathy for such as love and cherish them — 

You may wait till your heart-beats are warmer and truer. * 

PHILOPROGENITIVE. 

You of the child-loving, generous, and sympathetic face. 
Face welcome as spring suns, June showers, and fair weather, 
Welcome as rest after sickness, pain or hard work, 
Good to look upon as rosy sunsets after a storm, 
Pleasant and promising as banks of violets in early spring. 
Soothing as the soft harmonies of a lover's serenade, 
Encouraging as health, plentiful crops, and good markets. 



Loving and prophetic of universal love and joy for ail, 
Parental, tolerant, kind— loves everything and everybody, 
Tender, indulgent, and lifegiving to all souls. 
Friendly — has a kind word for all comers and goers — 
"Wearing an always-alike, every-day-holy face — 
You are acceptable, and may go up. 

You who love your neighbors, your wives and children for the money they bring, 
You whose faces are expressive of night, and foul weather, 
Are true pictures of selfishness, vexation, and avarice, 
Who are unsociable, and grievous as misanthropes and dyspeptics, • 
"Whose souls are as unmusical as a bear with a sore head. 
As unwelcome as the cholera, or a frost in July, 
As destructive to harmony as hail-storms to flower gardens, 
As intolerant and stupefying as a bigot's creed and gospel. 
As unindulgent as a tyrant's religion and code of laws. 
Acknowledging no individual or collective natural rights, 
Only the divine rights of kings and priests — 
You must wait with your calamities. 

ADHESIVE. 

You with friendly proclivities, and strong adhesiveness. 
Strong social feeling, and love and regard for society, 
Always ready to enjoy yourselves and help others to enjoyments, 
Never deceptive, but always showing and acting just what you aie, 
Beautiful-souled, warm-hearted, and pity-stored, 
Ready with a helping hand to raise the feeble and the fallen. 
Forgiving, tender, sympathetic and indulgent. 
Ready to share the world's burdens and help reform its errors, 
Falling into love easily, and never ready to fall out. 
Always sticking by through good or evil, light or darkness. 
Never like shadows stopping only while the sun shines. 
Ready to live or die, to spend or be spent for a friend — 
You are welcome as any, and may go up. 

You who love only self, and always wear a stingy aspect, 
"Whose looks are fair or foul, as stocks go up or down. 
Unsocial, heartless, and cold as a glacial iceberg. 
Caring for no others, and by no others cared for, 
"Who go through the streets like things without souls. 
Go about muttering and rehearsing your grab games — 
You must wait till you come to life. 

INHABITIVE. 

You who have great attachment to home and its surroundings, 
Think it the dearest, sweetest, holiest spot on earth. 
Feel homesick, restless, anxious, miserable when away. 



6 

l)islike to be always roving and changing places, 
But love your home and country with an ardent love 
Such as can never be quenched, smothered or buried, 
Are patriotic and ready to fight for the right against any odds, 
Fight for freedom, honor, fame, justice, truth, righteousness, 
Fight for equal rights, and equal chances for all to obtain them 
Against all usurpation, tyranny, monopoly and robbery. 
Against the rich robbing the poor, and degrading woman, 
Against rumselling, gambling, banks, and corporations. 
Against slavery, and all that advocates, tolerates and supports it — 
Vou are as good as any, and may go up. 

You who have no attachments^ and care for none, 
Who have no love of home, and are careless of its surroundings, 
Rather loaf in taverns, stores, shops, or high-ways. 
Love to be always roving, gossiping, and changing places, 
Care only for your own rights, and what you can make of them. 
Love tyranny, monopoly, robbery and what comes of such. 
Like one place no better than another, and no one over right, 
Care not where you are, or how soon you go, or how fast 
You may count upon going, any way but up at present. 

CONCENTRATIVE. 

You who like variety, change of thought, feeling, and occupation. 
Who are not confused, worried and disturbed by such things, 
Who combine mechanic, farmer, philosopher, and prer.cher. 
Can be merchant, pedler, auctioneer, congressman, pr.\Mdent, 
Can be lawyer, doctor, judge, sculptor, painter, and the vest. 
Can see readily from causes to effects the shortest way, 
Can see ways to Heaven without going through Egypt, 
Can fall, yet come upon your feet, and try again, and again -v» 
You are round and whole, and may go up. 

You who can see, think of, and manage to do but one thing. 
Who can never see any way from cause to effect, 
Who, if you fall, must lay there till you are picked up. 
Who have no self-reliance, but must always lean upon others. 
Who are always, when out of the old track, out of soundings, 
Who- are shoemaker, or hatter, or tailor, and nothing more — 
You are flat and fractional, and must wait. 

VIVATIVE. 

You who are vivative, love life, and have no fears of death, 
Know what it is to live, or to die, and are ready for either. 
Willing to go, or willing to stay and meet the consequences, 
Having no fear of wrath, or fire, or annihilation. 
Attached to life, here and elsewhere, now and forever, 



Desiring it for the love, pleasure, and blessing it may bring, 
Loving it for these luxuries upon any terms, 
Accepting it willingly for its own sake, and what it brings. 
Clinging to its immortality though poor and miserable, 
Knowing how immortal you and the rest are, and always will be, 
How impossible is any thing short of that for you and me. 
How all death is but new birth over and over again. 
And each one higher, purer, nobler, holier than the last. 
Till all is swallowed up in the victory of man, immortality — 
You are worthy, and may go up. 

You who prize it lightly, and choke it with useless fears and anxieties, 
Who live falsely, and die a thousand deaths in dreading one. 
Know not what it is to live or die, and are never ready for either, 
Never willing to go or stay, or meet the consequences of either, 
Always fearful of the devil, of fire, or annihilation, 
N^ver knowing how inimortal you are and always will be, 
How impossible it is that even one should be lost. 

Or that one should fail of coming to the knowledge of truth and godliness- 
You must wait. 

COMBATIVE. 

You who know your nativity, and what it is worth to you, 
Can manfully resist injuries, insults, oppressions, and wrongs. 
Can make your " bullets carry billets " that must be read and felt, 
Can understand your rights, contend for and gain them, 
Can uproot falsehood and plant truth in its place, 
Can tear the masks from lying and deceitful men, 
(Such as always remind one of coiled and hissing serpents,) 
Can fearlessly encounter opposition and walk over it. 
Can be efiicient in all contests for Truth and Justice, 
Quick and resistless in resistance to falsehood and wrong. 
Who love controversy and can boldly and successfully meet it, 
Who can be mad enough to choke or knife your enemy, 
(One who has deceived, injured, and insulted you,) 
Yet, like the Indian, spare him because you would watch him — 
Spare him because you would not have him with your friends out of sight- 
Who can forgive injuries, if so you can forgive yourselves, 
Who can contend for the truth, and declare its rights, " live or die "— 
You are worthy, and may go up. 

You who tremble at thunder and guns, are pale and inefficient, 
Who wear masks over lying, little and deceitful souls, 
Who speak words that are false, and wear expressions of lies. 
Who show false faces, and make false professions and promises, 
Who are always fearful of discovery, and coming to justice, 
(Do you know any such, and how it feels to be stung by them? 



8 

I do, and I know how to pick the stings out, and what else to do with them.) 
Such as have ugly eyes and faces and uglier souls, 
Such as have grinning faces, and next to no souls, 
No-meaning, neuter-gender-faces, all hollow and false. 
Such as strive to keep people in ifi:norance and darkness, 
Such as misdirect and instruct for selfish purposes. 
Such as are rich, yet have nothing to give, or be taxed for, 
Such as work with the devil for money, rather than with God without it. 
Such as labor to make the world worse instead of better. 
Such as are a continual torment and vexation of spirit, — 
You must wait, nature has little use for cowards. 

DESTRUCTIVE. 

You who can feel lively indignation at wrong and outrage. 
Can destroy or remove obstacles from your way. 
Can oppose a head wind, and rise like a kite over it. 
Can face and manage anything better than a dead calm, 
Can face opposition without fear or trembling. 
Can face hardship and gain manhood and self-reliance, 
Can face God, man, or devil, without paling or fainting, 
Can face storms without flinching or quailing, 
Can bide your time, and then go to your work and do it. 
Can mark out your course and go straight through it. 
Can make plain marks enough to show you have been this way, 
Can see your work, know what it is, go to it, and do it, 
(Unless all the powers above and below interfere and prevent,) 
Can make tyrants and their minions tremble, 
Can plunge thorns in the sides of slavery's Presidents and Judges, 
Can shake the stupidity that needs shaking and waking up, 
Can shake the devil and all his aiders and abettors, 
(In the church or out of it, Sundays and all other days,) 
Can go abroad bare-faced, upright and undisguised, 
Can be righteously contrary, obstinate, and difficult to manage. 
Can not be persuaded or forced to go in wrong direction, 
Can not be made to say or do things just for conformity's sake, — 
You are welcome as any and may go up. 

You who never dare be angry, or to show resentment, 

Sure to run and be hit in the back,, if hit anywhere. 

The last in, and first out, of anything more than a sham fight. 

You who have but one holy day in seven, and desecrate that, 

"Who go abroad scheming, thinking yourselves unknown. 

Who dare not face wrongs and remove them out of the way, 

"Who have no time or disposition to improve the world. 

Hedge yourselves about and vegitate, rather than go manfully abroad, 

"Who care only to deceive or cheat a living, or a fortune out of others, 

"Who can smile over oppressions, if only you escape them. 



Who can go the wrong way as patiently as any way, 
Who study only conformity to trade and best bargains, — 
You are not welcome and must wait. 

ACQUISITIVE. 

You who rightly value money, can get and spend it freely, 
Value it not to count, or hoard, or leave behind, 
But for what it will purchase to carry and abide with you, — 
Knowledge, Wisdom, Love; Friendship and Blessedness, 
Who know the law of nature is giving and having, 
That misers are vastly poorer than such as have nothing, 
That all stinginess punishes itself at a ruinous rate, 
That no one can hoard and keep without parting with more than he gets, 
That no one has any natural right to more than answers natural needs, 
That, when greater barns are needed for storage, the soul is gone, 
That, thus and so, nature always will have her revenge, 
That there is a fixed law in these matters, as with the sun and stars, 
That no one can be exempt from this, let him fancy it as he may, 
Who know you come by, go by, and remain by the laws of nature, 
Who are booked, and stand well on the credit side above, 
Who have internal goods enough to make you always rich, 
You cannot be hindered and may go up 

You who care only that ledgers and day-books tell well 

Such as buy and sell at best bargains, and would be twice paid, 

Such as are avaricious, untrustworthy, and dishonest, 

Such as love diminutive measures and light weights, 

Such as would sell without parting with the thing sold. 

Such as want best bargains and always more than the money's worth. 

Such as tiave hard faces, close lips and eyes, and impenetrable ears, 

Such as have hard hearts and souls, given to cold hospitalities, 

Such as have one Idol, and no love or worship for God or men. 

Such as love to beggar their neighbors, and grab all their goods. 

Such as take per centage by day by way of accommodation, 

Such as boast of their skill in such sharp manoeuvering, 

Such as boast of their skill and tact in superlative meanness, 

Such as boast of robbing faster than the fastest, . 

Such as boast of the longest pile in the shortest time, 

Such as are knavish, always wanting the best end, the more the better, 

Such as are sorded, and but half sleep with fears and vexations, 

Such as covet and want to get and own everything, — 

You who had rather hug ugliness and hell with money. 

Than health, beauty, and Heaven without it. 

You must wait and welter in dismal swamps and jungles, 

And come up with slowest progress, after great changes, 



10 

SECRETIVE. 

You wlio are always frank, open-hearted, artless and out-spoken. 
Who are fair-faced, candid, free, faithful, friendly and good — 
Who love truth and virtue for the good of them — 
Who speak what you think, and act what you feel — 

Who wave others' secrets, and, if any, tell your own — 
Who are plain-spoken, just, candid and truthful — 
Who never try to hide, or to fancy yourselves hid, 
Who would be known and prized for what you are and no more — 
You m-ay go up, and find room. 

You who would never appear to be what you really are, 

Who never say, or mean to say what you really mean, 

Who only mean to misguide, equivocate, dodge, and deceive, 

Who come up and stay awhile, through ignorance, and will as surely go 

down through that. 
Mean to be mysterious, mean to hide and not be found out, 
Mean to keep dark because the light would kill you. 
Mean to be cunning because nothing else will save yoa, 
Mean to be artful, and get your nuts without climbing, 
Mean double-dealing, to get and eat the bread that is not yours. 
Mean to dodge disclosures under pomatum and tinseled cloaks^ 
Mean to be thought wise, and pass well, by saying nothing, 
Mean to be taciturn, and so stand well with stupidity. 
Mean to be non-committal, and so stand well with all parties^ 
Mean by that to get the crumbs and coppers they toss, 
Mean to deceive by making false professions and promises,. 
Mean to make such answer at whatever extent of falsehood. 
Mean to make mere appearances answer for realities — 
You may wait till time takes off your false integuments> 
Turns you right side out, and points you how to go up^ 

eAUTIOUS. 

You who can openly speak the truth and fear nothing, 
Can be honest, and act impromptu, careless of consequences,- 
Can be imprudent because you will be manly, 
Can be luckless because you will not be knavish, 
Can be starved rather than not speak and act the truth, 
Can be reckless for the Right and the benefits of such. 
Willing to work for benefits instead of praying for them, 
Willing to merit them instead of getting them stealthily — 
You may go up and find welcome. 

You who are timid — shake and faint easily, 

Who run when no man pursues, or threatens to'pursue, 

Who hesitate and linger, and die over and over of groundless fears, 



11 

Who care not who starves if you can flourish and feast. 
Who study only policy and self aggrandizement, 
Who labor not for the right if it costs more than it comes to. 
Who would get benefits without meriting or working for them. 
Who would stand well with compromisers and majorities — 
You must wait, and I don't know what else. 

. APPROBATIVE. 

You who have suitable sense of propriety, of honor and benefits, 
Suitable regard for character and the worth of character, 
Suitable ambition to be men instead of apologies for such, 
Suitable desire for popularity, for its use and benefits. 
Suitable desire for fame, with desire to merit such, 
Laudable desire for distinction and " distinguished regard,'* 
You who desire all these, and keenly feel censure and wrong. 
Who value character and honor, and smart when they are pricked, 
Who know how it stings to bo basely censured and wronged, 
Who wince when the apple of your eye is handled by quacks and fools, 
Who enjoy approbation and sacrifice much to obtain it. 
Who know the good of life consists in the truth of it. 
And its duties in getting men into communion with it. — 
You may go up. 

You who care less for reputation than for houses and lands, 
Less for manliness and worth than for popularity 
Less for merit and fame than for dollars and cents, 
Less for godliness than dexterity in the tricks of trade. 
Less for character than for larger barns and more feasting. 
Less for stings of conscience than for driving hardest bargains, 
Less for the truth of life than for the shams and unrealities of it. 
Less for making people righteous than getting them into " our interest 
You may wait. 

SELF ESTEEM. 

You who have self-respect, and would not outlive such, 
Who have manly feelings and would not have them trampled on, 
Who would be men, whole men, nothing short of true men. 
Who love liberty, love it for yourselves and for all other men. 
Who love natural dependence and natural independence for all. 
Who have pride and self esteem, and know you have a right to them, 
Who know that no manly way can be made without them, 
You who are high-minded, and despise little and mean things, 
Who despise the mauoeuvres of little and mean men. 
Who are self-reliant, nor all-dependent upon others. 
Who are dignified, and can master yourselves and more, 
Can do something worthy of yourselves and humanity — 
You are welcome, and may go up. 



12 

You who have neither self-respect, reliance, or manliness, 
Who have neither ease, dignity, nor weight of character. 
Who let yourselves down to do and say flat and foolish things, 
Who bve liberty for yourselves, but are careless of it for others, 
Whose self-respect is measured by capabilities of external show. 
Who stoop to the manners of little and ignorant men, 
Who have little weight of character, and must be governed by others, 
Who can do nothing worthy of yourselves or of humanity, 
Who can do nothing to reform either church or state — 
You are unwelcome, and must wait. 

FIRMNESS. 

You who are decisive, firm, with powers of opposition. 
Who are stable as the granite, and know the reason of it. 
Who have decision of character, and others know the reason of it, 
Who have perseverance and will die hard and late. 
Who aim to do and say great things, and will do and say them, 
Who are stubborn, and care only for what is true, old or new, 
Who can be safely relied upon in cases of emergency. 
Who know the right and pursue that as best you may, 
Who are hard to convince without the pure reason. 
Who are rational, and hold long, hard and tight to that, 
Who aim high and will hit — will go high, higher, and highest, 
Who will take positive evidence instead of doubtful hearsay, 
Who are sure you can trust your own senses and reason 
You may go up now and forever. 

You who give over backwards, and change often and easily, 
Who faint and fall by the way, and are always inefficient. 
Who aim only at small things, and fire only small shot, 
Who are withy and can be bent round any popular bean pole. 
Who are only in the way in case of fire or other emergencies, 
Who know not how to set yourselves or others to work. 
Who pale at stocks, stones, shadows, and night-owl hootings. 
Who give up without a reason, and " die without an effort" — 
You must wait as near remedyless as any. 

CONSCIENTIOUS. 

You who have intuitive perceptions of truth and duty, 

Who have righteous views and feelings of accountability, 

Who have a keen and ever-present sense of Right and Justice, 

Who value moral principle more than chances for office. 

Who leve truth, and find your reward great enough in that, 

Who are honest, and love all men, but honest ones best. 

Who are faithful — faithful to the highest and lowest, and to all between such, 

Who are upright, and can iet others upright, and help them to stay so, 



13 

Who are penitent, ask no pardon, ask only to be kept from sinning, 
Who mean well, and work by that, let what will come of it. 
Who have more regard for duty than expediency. 
Who love the truth and will speak it, let it kill or cure. 
Who will not tolerate wrong in individuals or governments. 
Who think there are as good men now as there ever was. 
Who think there will be better than there are, or have been, 
Who think the world always lias been and always will be growing better, 
Who know that Progress ever has been and ever will be according to law — 
You must go up, now and forever. 

You who have few small and tough conscientious scruples, 

Who have the weakest conceptions of truth and duty. 

Who have small sense of propriety, and smaller of accountability, 

Who have next to no sense of common right and justice 

Who are faithful only so far as necessity requires, 

Who are neither upright, nor of any use in helping others so, 

Who tolerate wrong in individuals and wrong in society. 

Who think men as good as their neighbors good enough. 

Who aim low and go low, down to the lower and the lowest, 

Who think silence and stupidity the surest passports to popularity. 

Who saddle your sins on the innocent and unsuspicious. 

Who are no conductors of harmony, but only wooden isolators, 

Who care neither for the rights, feelings, or interests of others — 

You may wait, and skulk round and up the back way, ultimately. 

HOPE. 

You who have large hope and unbounded anticipations. 
Who expect present and future chances to be men and angels. 
Who expect to succeed, know you have a right to, and will succeed, 
Who attempt great things, persevere, reach, and do them, 
Who promise much, and prove a match for the promise, 
Who are sanguine, keep your course, and beat down obstacles. 
Who are cheerful, and can keep scores cheerful through afflictions and ca- 
lamities, 
Who can work on short pay and short fare, and feel as well as another. 
Who can come to bread and water, but never to misanthropy or suicide. 
Who can get over troubles Avithout whining or going into fits, 
Who can be disappointed over and over and over again, and still keep to 

truth and duty. 
Who can keep an eye to the bright side, and strive hard to fetch up there, 
Who can go afoot (if no means to ride) and write poems by the way. 
Who can, somehow, bear even an ass's kick, with due swearing, 
(Unless he is a poor " sorry " one, Avho cannot get over or round any stump,) 
Who, if you cannot live here, can live in the hereafter. 
Who can be beat in a first love and second, and still be sound and whole, 
Who can go through fu-ey ordeals and come out unsinged and bright, 



14 

Who can rise and fall, and come, like a cat, square on your feet, 
Who can build castles in the air, and dodge them when they fall, 
Can have more than one iron in the fire, and learn Greek besides. 
Can hang by the sides of full-sped and firey wild horses, 
Can come atop fairly at the right moment, fire, and hit. 
Can see that all good comes of victory won in some kind of battle, 
Can see that the good for you is good for me, now and forever, 
Can read and know God in fact and the Devil in fiction. 
Can be men down in the mire or up on the mountains, 
Men in the theatre or music-hall, or with bricklayers and hod-men. 
Men in the church or in the market-place, 
Men in the castle or in the hovel and cow-yard. 
Men in the White House or any other house. 
Men on war-footings or on peace-footings. 
Men with high men or with low men. 

Men with the pure and sober, or with the besotted and drunken, 
Men with the virtuous or with the licentious — 
You may go up and help yourselves. 

You who are low-spirited, and need propping up and nursing. 
Who ask little and expect little, and wear graveyard expressions, 
Who always look on the dark side, and would die in some Delila's lap. 
Who have small powers of resistance, and fall easily into misanthropy and 

suicide, 
Who are given to despondency and lack-a-day mutterings. 
Who can never surmount difficulties, or prove a match for calamities, 
Who must wear crape, take physic, say your prayers and sink. 
Who, when tried in the fire, go altogether to smoke and ashes. 
Who magnify evils and are fearful of friends and enemies, 
Who look not for the good of life, and only care to shun the devil. 
Who are never well when others are well, or sick when others are sick, 
Never live when others live, or die when others die — 
You must wait with small hope. 

MARVELOUS. 

You who confess you do not understand everything. 
Who are willing to investigate till you do understand. 
Who believe in mysteries, foreshadowings, and forewarnings. 
Who believe the Natural consists of the highest and lowest. 
Believe that no Supernatural thing is, or can he, 
That spirit is as natural as matter, only more so, 
That mysteries are mysteries because of misunderstandings. 
That light and love are positive, and all else negative. 
That aU things, high and low, are inseparably united, 
Who are open to conviction and are ready to believe. 
Who demand only that the " story shall be large enough," 
Who believe all reasonable revelation, new or old. 



15 

Who are credulous and have faith in dreams, 
Who have faith in ghostly spiritual men and women, 
Who have faith in dreams and know their indications, 
Who believe the spiritual man is the real man, 
And that all resurrection is wholly spiritual. 
Who regard all things, great and small, with wonder, " 
Even the growing and flowering of grass and ferns. 
Who will believe when you understand the why and wherefore, 
Will believe of the old or new only what bears examiPhation — 
You may go up easily. 

You who are only convinced the hardest and slowest way, 
Who have small faith in what cannot be weighed and measured, 
Who believe nothing till you see and feel, nor much then, 
Who see no relationship between the inner and the outer, the high andlow^ 
Who are skeptical and believe nothing, not even yourselves. 
Who can give no rational account of what is, or has been, or shall be, 
Who cavil and cry humbug, rather than seek manfully for Truth — 
You must go up tremulous and slow. 

VENERATION. 

You who can worship the Infinite through his works. 
Who love Natural Theology, Natural Religion, and Natural Life, 
Who love men and women, love children, and the manners of childrenjr 
Who have more love for such than for church sacridities, 
Who read in man nature's ultimate development, 
Who think all duties to God consist in duties to men. 
Who think all selfish and fractional prayers a meanness. 
Who require teachers to show how men and women can be noblest, 
Who view man as a spirit organized in matter. 
Destined to blaze in glory and develope through eternity, 
Who venerate all natural formation, growth and change, 
Who venerate men and women, and all natural religion. 
Who venerate and respect all relationships to God and men — 
You can go up. 

You who have little respect and less love for humanity, 
Who love supernatural better than natural religion and natural life^ 
Who are cold and heartless, with a dog-in-the-manger disposition. 
Who think men should be wn-naturalized in order to be saved. 
Who think men can be pre-eminent only for piety and church-going, 
Who are satisfied with impassable gulfs between- God and his children^ 
Who are famous only for sanctity, fervor, and long faces. 
Who believe in the old that fails, rather than in the new that succeeds, 
Who afi'ect to love the pious, and are so loved only by the pious. 
Who labor for a few rather than for the universal good of humanity, 
You must. wait, and try weak tea and psalms set to music. 



16 

BENEVOLENCE. 

You who are kind and lend a hand with a relish, 
Who are obliging and feel the better for it, sleep the easier for it, 
Who are glad to serve even the ungrateful and selfish, 
Who like to help others even to your own injury, 
Who have working sympathy with distress and afford relief, 
Who, like my good friend, are whole souled and generous, 
Who, like him, are §n honor and blessing to humanity, 
Who go about doing good deeds and saying good words. 
Who go into lowest human dens and help up the wretched. 
Who will hunt diligently for the strayed or stolen till found and restored. 
Who would rather divide your last crust than die a rich robber. 
Who love yourselves, and love your friends, and my friends, 
Who understand division, and can share things properly, 
Who can give and take benefits with an even balance, 
Can know that more than your part is not yours. 
Can know that what comes not of yourselves is not yours, 
Can know that not less than all men have a right to all good, 
Can oblige a friend w^ithout feeling any poorer for it. 
Can be good, asking only the benefit the good confers, 
Can scatter blessings as the sower scatters seed in his field, — 
You are welcome and may go up. 

You who faint easily and require rose-water and cologne. 

You, like "shadows, stopping only while the sun shines," 

You of the " stagnant mentality " and benevolence WvTshiping stingy gods, 

Who scatter only partial blessings over partial peop.e. 

You stagnant priests who post people to hell for lack of piety. 

Though lacking nothing in morals, charity, and benevolence. 

Who think the greatest good is only for the smallest nimber, 

Who are "like the pupil of the eye, the more light the mor^ contraction," 

Who never hunt for the lost or those far out of the way. 

You stiff'-necked, close-fisted, tight-skinned circumstances. 

Who will never divide the world's goods in an even balance. 

Who never go about doing good deeds or saying good words. 

Who never bear any cross, only help shoulder them on to others. 

Who aver that yesterday, to-day, and forever, are not ours. 

Are not all men's legal inheritances and inalienable rights, — 

You are of small use to yourselves or others and must wait. 

CONSTRUCTIVE. 

You who have great dexterity in the use of tools. 
You for whom the tools are fit and to whom they belong, 
Who can put many things into best shapes and to best uses, 
Can build the magnificent steamboat and packet ship. 
The almost alive, stationary, and loco-motive engines, 



17 

The long ranges of piers and elegant ware-house«, 

The beautiful dwelling houses, public, church and state houses, 

The cities and villages that beautify and adorn the earth, 

The monuments, eloquent of the deeds of heroes, 

The hospitals, where the homeless sick find shelter and rest, 

The colleges, where some things* worth, and some not worth knowing 

are learned. 
The school-houses, where the state protects its thought fountains, 
The great arches, spanning wide and turbulent waters, 
The frightfully magnificent suspension bridges, 
Stretching from bank to bank over wide and rapid streams, 
The beautiful tubular bridges, stretching from pier to pier, 
Through which the iron horse puffs his precious freights 
Safely over miles of turbulent and foaming waters. 
The solid dams and break-waters of rivers and bays, 
The light-houses, to guide mariners safely into port. 
The great factories, with their pickers, carders, spinners and weavers, 
The great meal and flower mills, with their grinders and bolters. 
The lumber mills, with their sawing and planing machines. 
The great printing establishments, with their rotary presses. 
The great armories, where guns are made that think before they speak. 
The great railways, stretching through long valleys. 
Reaching over wide rivers and through mountain ranges j 
Who stretch the telegraphic wires over all the earth. 
Bed them in the bottoms of broad oceans, bays and lakes, 
Make them carriers of thought of lightning speed. 
Make them bring wide latitudes and longitudes but moments apart, 
Thus gii^ing the world peaceful means for brotherhooding the nations. 
You, other things being equal, may go up. 

You who have no skill in the use of tools, nor ear for music, 
Who can put no thing into better shape than you find it. 
Who can neither make nor use tools after they are made. 
Have no skill in construction or in keeping from fZestruction, 
Have no particular desire to know how things are done. 
Have genius only of the man-millinery type and grade. 
You must wait and learn. 

IDEAL. 

You who think the earth a nursery and primary school for souls, 
Who imagine it a starting place for endless progression. 
Who imagine ignorance to be the only fearful devil. 
Who are eloquent for humanity and the rights of humanity. 
Who can weave for it beautiful thoughts into beautiful poems, 
Who, like my Platonic friend, can weave nothing but poems. 
Who, like my Abolition friend, can see nothing sacreder than man. 
Who, like my Theologic friend, can commune directly with God, 



18 

Who can be your own ministers and saviours, 
Who have taste enough to judge of and love the beautiful, 
Who find that always leading directly to the highest and best. 
Who fancy the unseen the realist, the truest, and lovliest. 
Who love the perfect and the way that leads to perfection, 
Who love the poetry of him who " lov£8 his fellow men," 
Who love literature lively and strong enough for its day's work. 
Such as will go into you, stay, and make you better men and women. 
Who love oratory^, such as does the work, "live or die," 
Who love the grand and beautiful in nature and art, 
Who love refinement and pure fellow-feeling. 
Who love the expression that commands silence. 
Love to drop the reins and let imagination run wild, 
Kun over and round the stars, all for the pleasure of it, 
Who go into fancy revelings over beautiful landscapes. 
Who go into extacy in the presence of beautiful and true men and wo- 
men. 
And feel that you never need be happier or nearer heaven, 
Who rise easily into enthusiasm in your pursuits. 

Whose heads are full-wheeled repeaters, showing the facts in the face, 
Who love the mechanism of the heavens and the earth, 
Love to trace the threads which hold these together. 
Love the harmonies that make the anthems of the universe. 
Who love your children well enough to live or die for them, 
Well enough to live when they live and die when they die. 
You may go up and fare as well as any. 

You who are rough in soul, coarse in features and expression. 

Who think yourselves light-houses, yet with your lanterns down in the 

belly, 
Can learn nothing from your surroundings of cause or eflfect. 
Had rather see error, ignorance and falsehood prosper than not, 
Have no love for the true and natural, the sublime and beautiful. 
Love shams, all the way up or down, from sham damns to sham doc- 
tors, 
Are contented to live and die without knowing why or wherefore, 
Have no love for eloquence, for poetry, or the fine arts, 
None for nature, for men, or the natural rights of men, 
None for him who labors earnestly for man and his rights, 
None for him who revels over all beautiful creations, 
Who traces the warpings and woofings of the garments of the Unseen, 
Who says that men should be taught in accordance with nature, 
That man must go forward and upward by her laws, 
That he cannot stand still or go backwards by any means. 
You who see nothing of this, but only the sheep-and-goat philosophy, 
Who can manage to breathe without much heart or soul. 
You must wait for great changes. 



19 

SUBLIMITY. 

You who have truest conceptions of the grand and sublime, 

Who are convinced that to be at all is to be eternal, 

Who have highest, purest, and truest emotions in such conyictione, 

Who love the magnificent, and become magnificent in the love, 

Love to stretch comprehension towards the incomprehensible. 

Love all true natural sublimity, and can set it to music, 

Love the splendid, and can draw and paint it, 

Love the mountains and valleys, the lakes and rivers, 

Enjoy the racket of the "live thunder" rattling over, through and into" 

them. 
Love to see the lightning "leap from craig to craig," or dive into the' 

foamy lake. 
Enjoy the roaring tempest tossing the ocean into mountain waves, 
Enjoy the bellowings and fire-vomitings of earthquakes and volcanos, 
Love to climb mountains for wide and grand scenery, 
Love to walk the sea-shore for the music of the ocean surge, 
Love the wild ruggedness of towering cliffs where eagles perch. 
Enjoy the awful gloom of arctic ice-fields, mountains and oceans, 
Enjoy the music of the dashing, leaping, roaring, foaming cataract, 
Love the auroral fire-flashings and meteoric showers, 
Love the stars, and think how you shall sometime walk them, 
How you shall study the geology and mathematics of heaven. 
Study the harmonies, music, and worship of the universe, 
You must go up as sure as any. 

You who can see nothing in forests but wood and timber. 
Nothing in mountains but rocks, pastures and trees, 
Nothing in rivers and lakes but fish, frogs, and alligators, 
Nothing in the sun and stars but lights for day and night, 
Nothing in thunder and auroral streamers, but threatenings of calamitiei, 
Who take melancholy and other such unnatural views of creation, 
See nothing in natural sublimity to love or venerate. 
Nothing in the truth that to be at all is to be forever. 
Nothing to profit you in the music of ocean storms and surged, 
In rugged cliffs, granite hills, mountains, and volcanos, 
In the magnificent sciences of geology and astronomy. 
In the universal harmonies, music, and worship of nature. 
Who see nothing vividly, and but little anyhow— 
You must wait as sure as any. 

MIRTHFUL. 

You who have speedy and sure perception of the ludicrous — 
Of the absurd and ridiculous, and can turn them to good account. 
Who are fond of jokes, and can give or take your part with a relish. 
Have a knack at fun-making, and can keep a neighborhood cheerful, 



20 

Have abilities and ways to ridicule absurdities to death, 
Who are sensibly mirthful, and can keep the sensible in good humor, 
Who can lau»h all over at once, heartily and really. 
Who are quick to perceive and turn things to good account, 
Who can laugh over the ludicrous even if calamitous, 
Who can take hardships easy, and lay them away easily — 
You may go up. 

You who have but little fun, can make little, and want less, 
Who are slow to perceive, and slower to take or turn jokes, 
Have no relish for a joke, or perception of the ludicrous, 
Have no ability to keep yourselves or your neighbors cheerful, 
Have no ability for a laugh, and can only make a lie of it, 
Who laugh slow and seldom, and as often repent of it — 
You are poor company and must wait. 

INDIVIDUALITY. 

You who are observing and seeing, see things and know them. 

Can see their sum and substance, and be the wiser for it. 

Who can see into the heart of things, and so get at the meaning of them^ 

Who observe men and manners, and understand their representatives, 

Who are quick to perceive and come at the pith of a matter, 

Who desire to know, if the knowing is the only good of it, 

Who will investigate, let it lead to what and where it may, 

Who will examine things sacred and unsacred without fear or favor, 

Who can see into and through others, and read as in a book, 

Can see what wants doing, see how to do, and then do it, 

Can see what wants saying, know how to say, and say it, 

Can be eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, and legs to the lame. 

Can be fragrance to the well, and healing balm to the sick. 

Who will not live in bewildered doubt and uncertainty. 

Who will have done with such conflict and take to realities. 

Who will li.-sten to the voice of reason and thus become sane. 

Who can think to some purpose and know the value of it. 

Who can be efficient and rich, yea, worth millions without money, 

Who know that honor and shame depend upon circumstances, 

Who can place honor alone in virtue, shame alone in vice, 

Who can believe men intrinsicilly divine, and worth more than worlds, 

Can believe men worthy who succeed in finding their worth. 

And then work worthy of men in the duties of men to men, 

Who can believe him greatest who can do greatest and best work, 

Believe that ignorance alone makes men poor and pitiful, 

Makes them animalish, and gives them over to animal pleasures, 

Crams the multitude with heathenish, conflicting opinions, 

And fills the world wiih discords and all manner of insanities. 

You who look for harmoi.y to the eternally True and Good, 

Who find the eternally True and Good in all the works of nature, 



21 

Find everything in its proper place, holy and acceptable, 
And the proper gratification of every faculty, passion, and desire, holy, 
"Who believe the honor of God can by no means be tarnished. 
Can not be affected by any deeds, any prayers or opinions of men. 
Who believe evils are necessities in the grand order of the universe, 
And as much as need be are an evidence of our destiny. 
Which is from verdancy below to sweetest ripeness above. 
Who believe evil works for good in driving men to self-reliance, 
Self- scrutiny, self-development, and self-perfection. 
Who believe the saying " Misfortune makes a wise man," 
Who believe it better to rub the rust and dirt from a man 
Than to soap them into him in any possible quantity, 
That he comes to himself quicker that way than in another. 
And 80 learns that the spirit of man exists for itself now and ever—* 
You are welcome, and may go up. 

You who are slow to see things with or without much showing. 
Who can neither see what should be done, or see well how to do it, 
Who never know what wants saying or know how lo say it. 
Whose antecedents and consequents, nominatives and verbs never agree, 
Who have no eyes or ears for any but yourselves, and poor for that, 
Who have no love for realities, only prejudices for fictions, 
Who never think to any purpose for yourselves or others. 
Never answer any save in the roughest and crookedest manner. 
Who think that learning and knowledge make people useless and mad, 
That conformity and stupidity are better than manful struggles. 
Who see nothing as it is, and think of nothing as it is and should be, 
Who make a show as laughable as a gander hooked to a paper kite. 
Who are walking hampers of bones with little else than animal life, 
Who can swallow your words and your heads and not die of a cholera, * 
Who can sell yourselves for a shilling without committing suici4e. 
Who can work patiently as low or lower down than dirtiest work. 
Who, on the body politic, are what carbuncles are on the necks of men, . 
• Who, through leisure and laziness, are given over lo disturbance and mis- 
chief making. 
Whose friendship is like thin ice, the safety is in the speed of getting away 

from it, 
Whose adhesiveness is like an icicle, cold and slippery inside and outside. 
Who are like underground pools, full of blind fish always doing sucking-in 

work. 
Who have only hedgehog hospitality, attraction, and appro achability. 
Who, like owls, secretly prowl about for chances to light on litile birds. 
Who, like weasels, creep into holes and corners to see whose life-blood you 

.can suck. 
Who get fat and sleek on the hawk principle, and go to your graves only 

hawk men. 
Who, like apothecaries' shops, are fiill of extracts of killing qualities and 
prices, 



22 

Who get outside of knavery as the Paddy did of his rum, by swallowing it» 

Who, like poor soups, need simmering and skimming over slow fires, 

Who are intolerable substitutes for true manliness and dignity, 

Who are infidel christians rather than christian infidels. 

You from whose words come no information of what you mean, 

Who do not know, or care to know, a sincerity when you see it, 

Who can never leave Falsities long enough to take a lunch with Truth, ' 

Who must be done for with broadcloth, shoe-blacking, and ribbons round 

the hat. 
Whose words, worth, and use, lead one to long for silence and oblivion. 
You sad and painful exhibitions of melancholy degeneracy, 
Who are not half equal to your time or to your fathers and mothers, 
Who do not know the difi'erence between a dead man and a live one. 
Who blight all your surroundings and blast and wither all you embrace, 
Who have neither physical or spiritual health or harmony, 
Who deem rascality a virtue, and glory in its rewards of shame, 
You Jews-harps who would pass for harps of a thousand strings, 
Who, like crinoline, expand indefinitely at bottom, but taper dreadfully at 

the top. 
Who can run backwards faster than a horse can run forwards, 
Who look as though doomsday was, or ought to be, near at hand. 
Who cannot meet, manage, defy, or walk over difficulties and dangers. 
Who are clothed with bodies impenetrable to all divine light and heat. 
Whose hearts have no furnaces, stoves, or other fire-places, 
You poor guns who execute much more at the breech than at the muzzle, 
You rough-hewn grumblers who blemish society as measles blemish the eyes 
Who can tolerate anything but intellect and the manners of a gentleman, 
Who, like poor watches, cannot be trusted or made to tell the truth. 
Who, like stagnant pools, the more summer and sunshine, the more pestilent 
Whose tough hearts bedim your eyes and drape your heads in black bows. 
Who find it harder and harder to be good, the longer you seem to live, 
You of the pickled olive expression, taste and qualities. 
Who are full of hate, spite and malice, always murdering something. 
Who, like boreal birds, are sure harbingers of winter and icicles. 
You, like dry wells to thirsty souls, only a painful aggravation. 
Who skulk round the edges of duty, ready to dodge at the first call, 
Who are full of cautiousness and timidity, always keeping close to the bur* 

row. 
Who glory in your shame because so many have the same fits. 
Whose consciousness needs as much cudgelling as a lazy horse. 
Who are never, rationally ^ either for or against any person or thing. 
Whose manhood is at a worse discount than stocks in a money panic, 
Who, like wolves, never attack anything unless mained or fettered. 
Whose genius consists in going feebly downwards by easy stages. 
Who cannot rise, but go through life close-folded in the grub and stub state, 
Who astonish the world only by the sad damage you do it. 
Whose truth is so mingled with dirt that it must be put in a rocker and 

washed to find it, 



23 

Who meddle whith loaded guns and don't know what it means when they 

explode, 
"Who are gullible by puffery, and patiently bear the pains and expense, 
Patiently swallow any quantity of fictitious proclamations of such, 
Can endure any amount of unreality with only sufficient shoe polish at- 
tached, 
Who, so far as faith in truth is concerned, are always in the sere and fall- 
ing leaf, 
Who always put one in mind of winter seasons and hibernating animals, 
Who operate like greenest wood upon fires most needed to burn, 
Who, like thistles, yield no figs, and must be mown down and left to decay 

head first. 
Who are near-sighted and cannot acquire any correct idea of distance. 
You for whose work partial or total blindness is no great objection. 
Who, like vicious cows, yield your milk of kindness in the slowest and 

most obstinate way, 
Who deny and belie your brother and leave him to shift without connections, 
Whose occupation is that of wearing fringes, whether of silk or cobweb. 
Who feed in clover and force others for food and warmth to thistles by the 

way-§id^, 
Who refuse the chances and rewards to such as are fitted for the work, 
Who think your circulation would be endangered if out of bad company, 
(Whose science is no more than a match for the cooking of a pot-pie) 
Who flutter in filthiness because your thoughts are broken-winged, 
Who know do disquietude like that of thinking and acting like men, 
Who, out of fellowship with stupidity, settle into discontentedness the fast- 
est way. 
Who sit on anxious seats with an eye over the left to the devil. 
Who have any quantity of vulnerable-point handles to lay hold on. 
Whose funeral hells are always ringing, and yet you will not start. 
You must " wait for the wagon." 

IMITATION. 

You who can take improved patterns or make new ones. 

Who can get impressed distinctly, and stay so over night. 

Who need but one shawing, and then are sufiicient for the rest, 

Who have no fears but that you can shoot the lion plump through the head, 

Who can always enjoy the sight of your own memory's pictures. 

Who can draw landscapes, animals, birds, flowers, and the rest. 

Who can draw faces, — sad, comic, familiar and unfamiliar faces. 

The bright manly face, with its all conquering expression. 

The dark unmanly face, reminding one of dyspepsies and devils, 

The stingy face, with its tight, puckery, and away-with-you aspect. 

The avaricious face, reminding one of light shining in darkness uncom- 

prehended. 
The benevolent face, with its sympathetic and godlike-love aspect. 
The true democratic face, that says "all for one, and one for all" 



24 

The mock democratic, that says " all for a few, and none for the rest" 
The slave-holding face, reminding one of crockodiles and other slime-bred 

monsters. 
The abolition face, clear, bright, and refreshing as a June morning, 
The bigot face, with its lifeless, green, sour, and muddy aspect. 
The spiritual face, fair, pleasant, and prophetic of universal godliness, 
The changeable face, of small use or profit to its owner or another. 
The mirthful face, that would set Psalms and Old Hundreds to short metre, 
The earnest face, that says " that's the reason, say what you will about it," 
The shallow face, that shows beforehand just what will come of it, 
The no-gender face, of no conceivable worth, meaning or use, 
The emetic face, good for a foul stomach, but dreadful otherwise, 
The snakey face, that works in by lying, dodging, and twisting, 
The drunken face, red or white, full of worm burrows and other death em- 
blems, 
The note shaver's face, hard and destructive as hail-stones. 
The ugly face, that one gladly dismisses on any possible terms. 
The prolific-mother face, good for all kinds of difficulties, 
The deceitful face, that smiles, promises, and then stabs and cuts, 
(I could draw some such any time, just from memory,) 
The charitable face, that reminds one of plenty and thanksgiving. 
The unaccountable face, good for nothing but to laugh at. 
The cheerful face, that makes all calamities bearable. 
You may go up and be employed. 

You who get feeble impressions, and know not what to do with them, 

Who never know, or can be made to know, the reason of it. 

Who always get false impressions, and stand still or go backwards. 

Who rather feed upon east wind than listen to God's own discourses. 

Who see no lovliness in any face of more than mortal meaning, 

See nothing pertaining to grace and beauty in any landscape. 

Who have small capacity for any good or true impressions. 

Take them hard and slow, and lose them easy and fast, 

Whose heads are like empty houses, going to decay faster than tenanted 

ones. 
Who have no back or other efficient bones, but are weak-kneed and scrofu- 
lous, * 
Must be-blistered often, yet are never any the better for it, 
You must wait to improve. 

TUNE. 

You who love music and can make it for yourselves and others, 
Who can make war or make peace with a song. 
Who can sing all day without being tired or tiresome, 
Who are enchanted by music and live long in a short time, 
Who sing from the heart, soften the heart and expand the soul, 
Who love singing birds better than owls or bats, 



25 

Who love singing wives and mothers better than the vixen type, 
Who love wind melodies and the melodies of flowers and brooks, 
The melodies of the stars, and of the angels that dwell amongst them, 
You may go up. 

You who have no ear for music, and make no account of it, 
Who love discord and confusion as well as harmony, 
You must wait. 

LANGUAGE. 

You who have ability to talk and to say the right thing, 

Who can express ideas, emotions and passions to some purpose, 

Who can talk down the Devil, and talk up God and man. 

Who free, off-hand and easy, can spit and roast liars and cheats. 

And as readily strengthen and encourage the truthful, 

Who can command the right words in the right time and place, 

Who, with the " iron tongue and golden lip " of truth and righteousness 

Can upturn a sea of faces, and hold them with a giant's strength. 

Who can rouse a nation from slumber to fight for its life, 

Who can goad tyrants to cudgel your brains out, 

Who caa fire words that make worse rents than bullets, 

Words that cut keener than razors or swords and sabres, 

Whose eloquence can sway the crowd as the wind sways the forest, 

Who can convince people that reason and self-reliance is greatest, 

Is greater than the world's popular doctors and priests, 

Can convince them that there is learned ignorance and quackery amongst 

them, 
Can convince them that the " quackery in the professions " 
Is the cause of so much quackery out of them, 

Can hit a lie on the head, and set a neighborhood to quarreling CTer it, 
Can reason down errors and foolish manners and customs,- 
Can string beautiful words into rapturous verse and prose, 
Can talk up to your time, and over beyond it into eternity, 
Can make the present better than tht past, and the future better than the 
present — 
You may go up highest. 

You who have no ability to talk or to hold your tongues, 
Who have never a wise, witty, or laughable word to say, 
Who answer needs and purposes as poor pumps answer in dry wells, 
Who have never a thing to say worth knowing or remembering. 
Who can neither talk, see, nor believe up to your time and place, 
Who can neither discourse, nor think, nor hold the light, 
Who can neither write nor understand what is written, 
Who can neither think nor be thought for to any good purpose — 
You may wait lowest. 



CAUSALITY. 

You who are disposed to look for the cause and meaning of things^ 
To look for and find the relationships of causes and efi'ects, 
Who have ability to trace, define, and represent them, 
"Who can adapt means to ends and ends to means, 
Can apply power in the right place and make it answer, 
Can see that when one thing has come others must come, 
Can reason from one thing to another through interminable series, 
Can, having a premise given, draw correct conclusions, 
Can, from first principles, draw all other principles, 
Who have ability to plan, reason, and work out the plan, 
Who will know the causes of things, and the causes of the causes, 
Who can think deep and close and learn the whys and wherefores, 
Muat have some explanjition and true account of things, 
Ready to afi'ord a reason and to demand a reason. 
Who can be " reason and judgment " as well as judges and reasoners, 
Who are strong-minded and can stand an earthquake easily. 
Who know enough and can let it off, and have to let it off often, 
Who can face men of any color or climate, and give and take benefits, 
Who can silence all shams, and bid them "out of the way," 
Who can be comprehensive and impossible to get round. 
Who require no certificates or trumpets to be blown for you — 
You cannot help going up. 

You who cannot contrive to think or think to contrive, 

Who have no power to bring yourselves or others into harmony. 

Who are slow to see and comprehend the reason of things, 

Who can never give a reason or understand one when it is given, 

Who are deficient in means and the meaning of means. 

Can sit and think of nothing while your responsibilities slide into a future 

Etate, 
Can arrive at such worst results as safely as at any other, 
Can be unintelligible yet be all the more satisfactory. 
Can be often thrown, yet never acknowledged to be down, 
Who have no ideas of judgment or judgment of ideas, 
Who can be run round or over, conquered easily, and yet vegetate. 
You who loaf away your lives and become useless in society. 
Who so misuse, waste and kill time and yourselves — 

You cannot help waiting, 

COMPARISON. 

You who can see the meanings of analogy and the analogy of meanings. 
Can see resemblances in differences and differences in resemblences, 
Can sift, weigh, and compare things and know the difference, 
Can illustrate and show up a matter to some purpose, 
Can write well, criticise well, and not " Die of a review," 



27 

tCan generalilze, classify, find your own place and others places^ 

Can bring matter? to a point and hold them there, 

Can bring the low to the high the high to the low and see the relationship, 

Can see the body and the soul of one nature and all above and below of one 

nature, 
That the live me is of the same nature as the corpse I leave. 
That of one blood and one spirit are all nations and God in and over all. 
You who can analize well, and see how the low produces the high, 
How spirit and matter refine, produce and develop each other, 
How minerals produce vegetables, vegetables anifnals, 
Animals men, and how men ultimate in angels, 
How laws and principles underlie, support and develop one another, 
"" How the love principle develops self love, conjugal love, 
Parental love, fraternal love, filial love, and universal love," 
How man is spiritually constituted of love and wisdom. 
And how shamefully he tramples his constituants in the dust. 
Who see how love is the life of Deity universally difi'ased, 
See how slow men are to see any side of Deity, but the wrong sidet 
You who can make the love side, and the effects of the love side, 
Ever conspicuous, attractive, and sufficient here and elsewhere, 
Must go up as high as any. 

You who have no power to compare, or draw inferences, 
No power to see things as they are, as they should be, or should not be, 
Who cannot see the diSerences and relations betwixt high and low. 
Who cannot illustrate any matter efficiently, or to any good purpose. 
Who can never get any matter under control, and hold it there. 
Who can see no natural way for the high and low to meet and mingle, 
No way for spirit and matter to combine and produce life. 
No way for man to com5 into this world in any natural manner, 
No way for Deity to produce all things by harmonious laws. 
Can see no love side, no efficient side, no successful side to anything, 
But perishable riches and their soul-killing accompaniments — 
You must wait as low as any. 

SUAVITIVE. 

You who can make yourselves deservingly welcome and agreeable. 

Who can win confidence and show yourselves worthy of it, 

Can do the thing you profess if you can have the chance. 

Can make yourselves agreeable to all sensible and rational people. 

Can make your enemies like if they do not love you, 

Can successfully speak the truth let what will come of it. 

Can obtain favors and dine agreeably with your enemies. 

Can have minds of your own, and be the better for it. 

Can say and do things that take with friends and foes. 

Can get an intuitive reading of the characters of men. 

Can tell the motives of men by their looks and words, • 



28 

Can be everywhere spoken against and be none the worse for it^ 

Can make the rich feel poor and the poor feel rich, 

Let them but tarry over a day and a night with you, 

Who can kiss and strike, strike and kiss, and so deal justly with your enemies^ 

Who can get silence and a wide berth from knaves and fools, 

Who can be deceived and wronged, bear it, and bide your time, 

Can be slighted and stung, bear that too, knowing the end is not yet. 

Can stand by and take notes whilst the mammon worshipers dine, 

While they contrive and plot how they shall devour each other, 

Can walk composedly whiie empty-headed dandyism 

Flourishes and feasts, drives its fast horse and finds it pays, 

Can aflfbrd to be poor, own nothing and yet own everything, 

Can reason, can affirm or deny anything and be agreeable about it, 

Can do something to raise hunaanity from its degradation. 

Can love humanity and make love the poetry of it. 

Can love to lead it to the beautiful and ennoble it, 

Love to bring it up to a proper sense of its divinity, 

Where it can hold true communion and fellowship with heaven, 

Can be governed by reason instead of foolish prejudices. 

Can meet, contend with, conquer, and then feed and clothe your enemy^ 

Can love and be loved and so dispose of yourselves, 

Can wade through a wilderness of calamities and disappointments, 

Yet hope on and arrive at happy valleys right-minded and strong. 

Can believe truth will establish itself in supreme indiflPerence 

To all theory, prejudice, stupidity and opposition. 

Can go on hopeful in the midst of the thousand and one 

" Admirable failures" of truth-doubters with their school theories, 

Hopeful and happy in the downfall of all foregone 

And unphilosophical, mental, and other conclusions. 

Who do not trouble yourselves to crush others and their opinions, 

Do not think your salvation depends on the sum of swch inflections. 

Who would not welcome misery for such an object. 

Would be happy in another, a wiser and better way, 

Would see all things, under proper circumstances, good and useful. 

Would see them just and lovely, and not to be wickedly opposed, 

Would not believe the world saved by the death of one man. 

But by the lives of many righteous and true men. 

Would not believe strange absurdities, die so and be laughed at. 

You who believe reason given to adjust all gospels, 

Given to settle all disputes and make us harmonious and happy, 

Would take to self loathing by accusing innocence 

Or by defending vice, knavery or slavery. 

Who can be the " world's fool " by not wandermg in its beaten paths. 

Can work out your own salvation in spite of opposing forces. 

Can love and be loved, as you are^ and be so improving. 

Who will not take passage through any populous desert, 

Any wilderness of selfishness, robbery, or wickedness, 



29 

But will take passage in God's efficient life-boats, 

And know that you shall arrive safely at your destined port— 

You can go up as well as any. 

• 

You who can never make yourselves agreeable or profitable, 

Can stow yourselves agreeable only to the disagreeable, 

Can never see through the motives of men by their looks and words, 

Cannot meet calamities and disappointments without falling under them^ 

Can never be agreeable or happy, or make others so, 

Can never go clear of trembling for fear of destruction, 

Can believe the commandments only to disobey them, 

"Who have no godly communion with the high or low, 

Who are only useful and agreeable to yourselves, 

Belong to the mammon worship and skin-one-another societies, 

Labor for nothing but what you must leave to others, 

Make life discordant and fill the land with wretchedness. 

Drive humanity to drunkenness, theft, robbery, and prostitution, 

Degrade, oppress, and kill the poor, to gratify your appetites and passions, 

Never make yourselves, your neighbors, or the world any better, 

Who are bad company anywhere, and worse in some places. 

Who have only such " ideal tendencies " as belong to animal existence. 

Who meddle with edge tools as stupidly as an ass pokes through thistle-beds^ 

Who reverse all natural order, and show finest strata at the bottom, 

Whose activity is just equal to the value of worst results. 

Who come out of every encounter worsted, belittled, and stultified. 

Have played your last card and found only damnation come of it. 

Who are always plotting for the worst instead of the best of life. 

Who are as far from home in school as a toad in a book-case, 

Who, in order to be seen at all, must blot out all your surroundings. 

Who would rise stealthily by sponging and expunging others. 

Who rather have did fossils from truth's ocean than new and live trout, 

Can be " soiry " for others' sins whilst exposing your own shame, 

Who are the dismal swamps, foetid fens, and jungles of society. 

Who, though never so foolish and mean, see no need of growing wiser, 

Who come into notice as moths do, by lighting in the candle. 

Who go through the ordeals of working into contemptibility, 

Who are providential calamities, personifying depravity. 

Who are baptized in the waters of unmitigated meanness, 

Whose aspirations are choked off below the reach of a school-boy. 

Who are as careless of treading on the corns of poets as of quack doctors, 

Don't know bat they may be as safely snubbed as peddlers, jockeys, and 

post-boys, 
Who never can learn any better than to go farther and fare worse, 
Who, like whip-poor-wills, can only see and sing in the dark. 
Who think you can surround and take Sevastopol with a pop-gun. 
Think you can cheat and deceive, and so do great things with small means, 
Never mindful that you can be easily stripped and exposed. 



30 

You, young or old, who have not sufficient sense of propriety to be decent, 
Who are not ashamed to appear shamefully either in public or private, 
Who shock all moral sense, and set all decency at defiance, 
Who are reckless of rule, reckless of conduct, and reckless of consequences, 
Who disturb congregations and throw propriety into fits and fevers, , 
Force ministers and others to look daggers, and then speak daggers and 

other pointed things. 
Whose walk and conversation are unmistakeable signs of bad conditions. 
Who are like sharp and shallow craft, always too easily controlled by the helm 
Who might be made over into Yahoos and you and the parish be the belter 

for it, 
Who are wanton in looks, in words, and deeds, and unblushingly expose it, 
Whose ends, aims and purposes can be read as far as you can be seen, 
Who neither fear God nor regard men in any commendable manner. 
Are as destructive to morals as July frosts and tornadoes are to lilies and 

roses. 
Who aim low, and go low, mind in the low and the low in the mind. 
Where you cover your souls with the scars, blights and blemishes of iniquity. 
And so become dark spots in the moral sun of society, 
You whose daily walks, thoughts, and deeds only make work for repentance, 
Making you bad, society bad, the state bad, and the nation bad, 
Make you infidel to God and men, to nature and humanity. 
Make you roll up like a burnt boot in the light and unrqll in the dark, 
Make you stupid and put you in false relations to all above and below you, 
• You must go up slow here and^ hereafter. 



SUxMMER NOON. 



Calm as infant's dreamless sleep, all nature seems in her repose ; 
The sultry sun, high over head, pours down his fervid scorching rays. 
Stilly and silently the trees hold their leaves, while the wind sleeps. 
Languidly the birds droop their wings, or drop into the cooling brook, — 
The shade is scarcely cooler than the sunshine, and motion or rest is bur- 
densome. 
All is silent save the twitter of the martin high up in the cool air. 
Or the locust singing from the tree-top, amongst the languid leaves ; 
The panting cattle plunging through the brush to still the mad'ning flies, 
Or rushing into the unruffled stream to quench their burning thirst. 
The haymakers are nooning in the shade, stretched out upon the grass, 
Keeping an eye out to the west, watching for signs of thunder showers. 
The flowers wilt, and droop, and curl ; their leaves hang flacid and limber. 
The corn leaves doff their glossy green, and shrivel, twist, and roll ; 



31 

The clover folds its leaves, and pales and faints from the kisses of the sun 
The river, like an endless mirror, calmly stretches along the valley, 
Reflecting numberless forms of beauty from its smooth and polished surface. 
The fishes plunge to the bottom of the stream, or seek the shaded shore ; 
King-fishers perch over the eddies and silently drop down upon their victims; 
The woods seem fast asleep, and the dwellers therein are still and silent ; 
The hills raise their heads into the hot sunshine with their wooden caps. 
Their leafy parasols, and seem to relish the fervid baptism of light and heat. 
A blue haze hides their clear outlines, and seems to blend them with the 

sky; 
On the mountains the earth and sky seem to meet, smile, and mingle ; 
The leaves hang low and motionless, and the silence is all but painful. 

White cloud-heads now begin to show themselves above the western horizon, 
The haymakers are quickly astir, and the carts are now rattling over the 

road; 
The word is, all hands to the rakes, and let the hay be quickly loaded and 

housed ; 
Upwards and onwards the clouds rise and roll, and fast and faster rolls the 

hay ; 
Up into heaps it is raked and pitched and" then tossed upon the cart, 
"Which is quickly loaded, driven to the barn, unloaded and hurried back ; 
Another and another load is hastened to the mow, or the barn floor ; 
The rakes are plied with double speed, and thick the hay-cocks rise ; 
The men with sweat are dripping fast, their clothes are wringing wet ; 
Their faces redden with the heat, — but they must save the hay. 
The cloud looms up thick, black and dark, and towers over the hills, 
The distant thunders now begin the stillness to disturb : 
Faster, nearer, louder, clearer, peat after peal its warning gives ; 
Red firery bolts dart through the the cloud and stripe its sides with fire, 
Or downward plunge into the earth with rattling, deafening crash. 

I lie sweltering in the sultry shade and note the movements of the clouds. 

Over the river I see the tree-tops bend and know the wind is waking up. 

Hill after hill is hidden and the storm rapidly advances, — 

The wind rushes and roars through the woods and over the fields and pas- 
tures : 

On it comes, the hay flies, the trees bend, and darkness deepens fast ; 

The big drops begin to patter upon the leaves, and on the house-tops ; 

The live thunder leaps over and about us, making the earth tremulous ; 

A dazzling light and awful crash together come and rend the oak ; 

The blast whirls the cloud and the rain rattles down in torrents ; 

The roads are flooded, and brooks run deep and wide as mill streams ; 

The haymakers hasten from their unfinished work dripping wet. 

Now they may change clothes and rest till the shower is over, then grind 
their scythes. 

The cloud grows thinner, and light begins to spread over the tumultuous 



32 

The wind subsides and the great commotion passes over and away, 
The cloud breaks and rolls off to sea, and the bright sun shines again, 
Magnificent bows arch the east, and once more the birds are musical. 
The leaves have unrolled and spread, and again show their glossy green. 
Big drops hang to their serrated sides, and glitter like brilliants in the sun, 
Fitful breezes shake the trees and the drops fall in twinkling showers, 
The fragrance of numberless flowers loads the new and cooler air, 
The leaves flutter, the grass waves, and the flowers nod to each other, 
The waters have settled into the valleys, and now it is a luxury to breathe, 
The too happy bob-o-link rattles oflF his music with an evident relish, — 
Off he goes from the tree top, in the brimful tide of ectatic song, 
Rattling over his demi-semi-quavers as long as he can bear it, then drops 

into the tall grass. 
The swallows dart up, down, and over the roads, fields, pastures, and woods. 
To and fro they skim over the waters, or plunge into its cooling surface. 
Birds are giving lessons to their young, teaching them how to sing and fly, 
How to behave and provide for themselves and avoid their enemies. 
The freshness and fragrance of the new-mown hay invites us all abroad, 
The gentle spirit of the air softly kisses the cheek, and fans the sweaty 

brow. 
The fainted earth now seems renovated with new life and freshness, 
Bright fleecy clouds float over the western hills and wood-capped mountains, 
All over the landscape the sun daguerreotypes numberless forms of beauty, 
Inviting us to a closer walk with the life and soul of all things. 



" SONG OF THE SHIRT."— new version. 

Slop, slop, slop ! 
Slop work and slop pay and slop living 

Is more than a woman can bear ; 
Four cents for a shirt they are giving, — 

In winter, give sixpence a pair. 
How sad to thus life-fountains drain, 

In misery, darkness, and dirt ; 
All just to life-rag-remnants gain, — 

Stich-stiching one's soul to a shirt. 

Stitch, stitch, stitch ! 
This stitching forever for crumbs 

Is worse than a Feej can's fare, — 
Than weaving a web for its thrums, 

Or shearing a hog for the hair. 



83 



Tis sad when our labors are done, 
And one goes to rest with the dead, 

To have, thus, one's epitaph run : 
" She died of a needle and thread." 

Bread, bread, bread ! 
This toiling and sweating in pain. 

Whilst children for supper must cry. 
Leads many of life to complain, 

And long for the pleasure to die. 
With scarce enough earned for the candle, 

To go to bed weary at twelve ; 
Then dream of the shirts we must handle, — 

How long for a skpence must delve. . 

Rags, rags, rags ! 
Oh ! men of the type '' bulls and bears ! " 

Oh! women of fashion and wealth ! 
Know you that the linen you wear 

Has robbed some poor sister of health ? 
And what has it left her instead ? 

What good for her toil can she show ? 
A poor ragged bunk and straw bed, 

And other such emblems of woe. 

Cold, cold, cold ! 
How shocking to shake with the cold, 

From wind whistling jigs through the cracks,- 
Whilst young to grow wrmkled and old. 

With nothing but rags to our backs. 
Our children must huddle ana squeeze, 

Like pigs in their litters of straw ; 
Each helps warol the rest, or they'd freeze, 

As death with each breath they must draw. 

Sick, sick, sick ! 
We're sick of this mean living-death, — 

Sick, sick of this wearisome stitch, — 
This panting for bread and for breath, 

In mendicant work for the rich. 
This stitch-e-te-stitch day and night, 

Is worse than wild Indians' fare ; — 
Their wants and life-burdens lay light, 

Whilst we are worn weary with care. 

Pain, pain, pain ! 
Each day's work comes laden with pain, — . 

Each night-dream is loaded with fears ; 
So life goes, and what do we gain 

But wages of slop-shirts and tears ? 
Our muscles are lame, stiff and sore — 

Our bones ache with wearisome toil — — 
Our nerves are benumbed to the core,— - 

And lastly, we've six feet of soil. 

Rent, rent, rent ! 

The landlord comes weekly for rent, 

Without ever missing the day ; 



84 



Sometimes he must have our last cent. 
Leaving nothing the grocer to pay. 

So, hungry to bed we must crawl, 
And cold, for we've no wood to burn. 

How low can humanity fall, 

Past such means a living to earn? 

Alone, alone, alone J 
How lone«ome, unlifed so, is life, — 

How heavily time drags along; — 
It puts UR in mind of the knife, 

To end this unhearable wrong. 
This stitching one's soul in a shirt, 

Is hanging one's life on a thread ; — 
This battle with hunger and dirt. 

Just numbers one — " missing or dead." 

Cry, cry, cry I 
To cry would afford no relief, 

For hunger says — " stitch it, or starve ! ** 
And so we must smother our grief — 

So even our tears we must halve : — 
Yes, halve them the quicker to dry, — 

We cannot stop here for a shower ; — 
Young ravens are fed when fhey cry. 

Nor left their own hearts to devour. 

God, God, God I 
Will God for his ravens provide ? 

And take heed lest sparrows should fall? 
Yet light from his countenance hide — 

Turn deaf from a slave-mother's call? 
What good comes of preaching and prayer, 

To poverty wretched and lean ? 
It often does better to swear. 

For 80 you get off what you mean. 

Die, die, die, 
Why stay where one's life is no use, 

No pleasure, or profit, or worth ? 
To find but neglect and abuse, 

The sum of our share of the earth ? 
This drudgery cripples the soul. 

And drains our life fountains all dry j — 
Why linger, then, fearing the goal? 

Than live «o, 'tis better to die ! 



85 

CRIES OF THE POOK. 

God, God, God! 
la there a God who rules in heaven ? 
' And who on earth rules all things well? 
Who has to life some purpose given, 

But what the poor man cannot tell? 
Who lets men breathe in sighs and groans, 
And say their prayers in mournful tones ? 

Breathe them out of grief? 

Of pain without relief? 

Help, help, help ! 
Like drowning men we cry for aid. 
And wonder why no aid is near ; 
Like slaves we toil unfed, unpaid ; 

Of want and misery in fear. 
The heart its mournful music ririgs, 
Wnilst time's cold fingers sweep its strings, 
So sadly wrung and worn, 
By stern death-grapples torn. 

Fire, fire, fire ! 
Our children shiver with the cold, 

The tears are frozen on their cheeks 5 
Their skins look rusty, rough, and old — 

Like shipwreck'd seamen starved on leeks. 
O give us wood or we must steal it ; 
— O yes you would if you could feel it — 
The horrid quivering, 
Shaking, shivering ? 

Bread, bread, bread! 
Then go to work, you say, and earn it. 

That's what we crave, that we demand ! 
Take heed, take heed, and don't you spurn it| 

If you would safely hold your land. 
When hunger through the stomach gnaws. 
We grit our teeth, and damn your laws ! 
Now hark ! God help the right ! 
Take heed ! for we can fight ! 

Rags, rags, rags I 
Ragged, barefoot, hungry children, — 

O. how they shake one's faith- in God. 
, Go look in that dark, human den, 
Where life is scarce above the sod, 
There cluster needs with no supply — 
Denied all good — e'en that to die ! 

Who keeps these rag-beds rife ? 
Who cares for such poor life ? 

Time, time, time ! 
Our time is wealth, iDut we must waste it, — 

We're counted waste, and may be wasted. 
The good of life ! we never taste it. 

Its ills with tears we've mixed and tasted. 
How slow the moments, slow the hours, 



36 



When each some hope for good devours, 
When each its story tells 
Of death and fun'ral bells. . 

Light, light, light ! 
Light to us is worse than darkness, 

We're down too low for light to reach ; 
Why pray to God for light to bless? 

Who need to us his gospel preach? 
Why plant your seed in unfit s.il ? 
If it should sprout, 'twould only spoil. 
No, first prepare and feed, 
Then you may plant your seed. 

Toll, toll, toll ! 
Hark, hark, what's that ? the bells are tolling I 

Now some poor soul has gone to rest j 
Hurrah, hurrah ! 'twere better ringing, 
For sure the change is for the best ! 
Give soul to soul, and earth to earth, 
Rejoice at every heavenward birth. 
Aloud, with cheerful voice 
Speak out, rejoice, rejoice. 

Weep, weep, weep ! 
Two souls are at the altar tied. 

Made one by law, not otherwise ; 
Th^y live to learn they'd better died, 
Than live a death that never dies. 
How many souls there wed to wo ; 
How many hearts are broken so. 

Or wrung with hopeless grief — 
Kegrets without relief. 

Hark, hark, hark ! 
What sounds are those that strike the ear? 

There's music Hoating in the air ; 
Can it be true that angels hear. 

And for our moatdngs seem to care ? 
Hark, hark ! it is an angel band, 
May be relief is near at hand. 
Time, fly, O Hy away. 
Speed on, speed on the day. 

Ring, ring, ring ! 
Ring out the merry pealing bell, 

There's hope in death. ' the poor man's fiiend !" 
Toll out for him no d(deful knell ; 

Rejoice, for ihere his troubles end! 
Ring out, the watch says, " Land ahead!" 
The so called dead may md be deadly — 
But seeming death to earth — 
To heaven real birth. 

Joy. joy. joy ! 

Lay down thy load, poor weary soul, 
Perhaps some Savior holds thee tight ; 



87 

You may but need to pass the goal, 

To find conditions true and right. 

More good for you may there be stored, 

Than for the rich who grasp and hoard. 

Perhaps your mortal pain 

May prove immortal gain. 

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! 
Then victory shall battle crown, 

And o'er the field our banners wave ; 
The Down rise up the Up sink down 

Beyond that leveler the grave. 
Fathers, brothers, children, mothers, 
Happy mingle there with others. 

Hurrah, there's, no more crying f 
Hurrah, there's no more dying ! 



I'M ALL ALONE, YET NOT ALONE! 

Alone ! I'm all alone ! At home and abroad I'm all alone, yet not alone ! 
In the dwelling-place of my fathers I am an alien and an outcast ; 
Society, with " locked arms and steps," closes up its impenetrable ranks, 
And refuses admission to all above the lower life and law ; 
I may starve or drown at my leisure, and find it is nobody's business ; 
Such only are accepted as work after prescribed patterns and formulas. 
I go to the river, loll upon the banks, and watch the fishes and water beetles, 
Listen to the caroling of the birds, the lowing of cattle upon the hills, 
The wind murmuring in the woods, and ruffling the water with tiny ripples, 
Nodding and waving the flowers, grass and corn — but I'm all alone, yet not 
alone ! 

I roam th^ haunts of my youth, and think of those who once enjoyed them 

with me— 
Think of the old men and women who flourished here when I was young ; 
Of the young men, maidens, and children who have come this way and gone, 
Of those I walked and talked with, dreamed of, loved, and parted from. 
Of my boat-rides upon the gentle Concord, and of her who rode with me. 
Of where 1 used to go and muse, and write what might be read after / was 

gone, . 
Of how some Mary, Sarah, or Susan would put me into the rhyming mood. 
How I could then come into harmony with the birds and flowers, 
Write out their songs and sermons, and read the meaning of their language. 
Of the pleasures of our moonlight walks — ^but I'm all alone, yet not alone ! 

I think of many blighted hopes, of prophecies all unfulfilled, 

Of when life's promises were bright as beauty's eyes of sixteen summers, 



88 

Of how I have trusted to 8uch as kissed the face and stabbed the back, 
Such as said one thing and meant another, and did worse than that, 
Such as offered the helping hand with an ever loosening hold, 
Such as kissed to betray, so that sinister ends could be answered, 
Such as would have them answered, no matter at what painful cost; 
Then of how such brought me to my senses, and to self-reUance, 
How such taught me to use my wings and seek fellowship above the earth,— 
Communion with spirit life — yet I'm all alone, yet not alone ! 

I think of the cowardice, the falsity and duplicity of men — 
How much they will trust for salvation to gilded farthings. 
How the wicked prosper, flourish, and fare sumptuously, 
How guilt and misery, cloaked and masked, find company enough, 
How men fancy they can cheat God with false pretences and semblances. 
How, if only the church is supported, crime may tire the world out in wel- 
come. 
How the brethren congregate, love one another, and lack nothing. 
How a toad I't the church is worth more than a nightingale out of it. 
How the dregs of men may luxuriate in her tinseled and gew-gawed lap, 
Whilst I am like the forest bird — so all alone, yet not alone ! 

I go to the stream where fairies dwell, and fairy music floats the air. 
Where the swallow dives to lave his wing, and freshen his shining coat. 
Where sunshine and shadow alike afford beauty and pleasure. 
Where the vine spreads in the thicket, and the oak shelters it from the storm, 
Where harmony, repose, and peace calm both the head and the heart. 
Where the river ripples in unison with the melodies of frogs and birds. 
Where no jostling crowds go mad in the process of skinning one another, 
Where no strife and discord blemish and befoul the fair face of nature. 
Where the solitude is less lonesome than the crowded marts of men. 
Where I can read the testimony of Time — yet, I'm all alone, yet not alone I 

I go to the busy city, but there I am only lonelier still. 

Here I am like a- stranger who meets no one to talk or mingle with. 

Who meets no smile of recognition, nor sees even a friendly finger extended, 

Who enjoys no friendly fare, no welcome, or hospitality, 

Who sees the merchant's nervous, hurried gait, and anxious, fevered face, 

The lawyer's cold, hard, crafty, and dare-devil expresuon, 

The doctor's easy, self-satisfied, nonchalant way and manner. 

The parson's long and mournful visage, expressive of doubts and fears, 

The artisan, absorbed in thought, with pale and care-worn look. 

The hurrying crowd of all complexions — yet, I'm all alone, yet not alone! 

Alone ! will the storm last forever ? will the sun never shine agaip ? 

Wait ! there's an Eternity ahead ! wait patiently and see what comes of tJiatt 

The locked arms will drop,. the lock-steps flag, the ranks break, 

The clouds will by-and-by roll back, and the sun will shine again ; 

1 shall rise, and float, and sail joyfully over the sea of humanity, 

I live, and shall live, and wait to see the dead bury their dead. 

The hot blood streams through my veins, and I must live, and will live. 

Over the ruins of youthful hopes one may be brave and manly, • 

From wasted years and mis-spent talents one may learn wisdom, 

" One with God is a majority !" Hurra ! I'm not alone ! I'm not alone f 



39 

I REMEMBER! I REMEMBER ! 

I remember the home of my youth, I remember 
The house and all its pleasant surroundings, where I was born, 

The play-grounds there were dearer far than any I have seen ; 
There, suns set loveliest at nisfht, and brightest rose at morn ; 

There, flowers their brightest colors wore, and grass its brightest green j 
There, days were never dull with care, nights never dull with grief ; 

Each day with joyful welcome came, each night with sweet repose ; 
But now with each must be endured sore wants without relief, 

At morn the eyes in trouble ope, at night in sorrow close. 

I remember, I remember 
The roses by the garden wail, the lilacs by the shed, 

The cherry trees I used to climb that in the corner stood, 
The peonies and lilies white, and tulips flaming red, 

When 'lection cake and lemonade, my mother made so good. 
The pear trees of a hundred years, and apple trees as old, 

Where ]?bbins every Spring returned, and built their nests and sung ; 
The wide-spread old ancestral elm, with hundred arms to hold 

The golden robins' hempen nests which from its fingers hung. 

I remember, I remember 
The old well under the pear tree, with its long pole and sweep. 

The oaken bucket, iron-bound, that dipped its waters pure, 
The clothes-yard with its whitening webs, the mill and apple- heap, 

The barn in which I used to climb, and walk its beams secure. 
The brook that ran behind the house, the willows by the pond, 

The speckled frogs that croaked all day, and peeped half through the night, 
The way which to the river led, of which I was so foiid. 

The river where I used to go and wait the fishes' bite. 

I remember, I remember 
The landscape, east, west, north, and south, mountains, valleys, rivers, rills. 

Where old Wachusett reared his head in sight for many miles, 
The grand Monadnoc, farther north amongst New Hampshire hills, 

Where R ndge and Ipswich mountains blue in bolder outlines stood. 
And near by home was Gilson's hill, the highest land in town, 

And down the valley wound the stream, with smooth and gentle flow. 
So smooth, 'twas often hard to tell which way was up or down, 

But then there grew the fairest flowers — there now the fairest grow. 

I remember, I remember 
Our morning and evening seasons of milkings and cow-drivings. 

Seasons of plowing, planting, hoeing, and then the harvest work ; 
The apple-grinding, nut-scraping, corn-cuttings and huskings. 

And how so often I contrived some means my task to shirk ; 
The water wheels I used to make and run them in the brook. 

The martin-boxes on the barn,, the windmills on the shed, 
The times beneath the old elm tree I read some story book. 

And listened to the oriole's sweet music overhead. 

I remember, I remember 
How wide and free my fancy roved, how pensively I mused. 

How much I thought of life and death, and how I feared to die. 
How loud the preacher talked of hell, and how folks there were used, 

How I must learn the catechism, which sometimes made me crv. 



40 

But years before my beard was grown, I flung it to the dogs, 

I went to thinking for myself and reasoned fear away, 
I well remember how 1 felt when rid of such vile clogs. 

When bears no more lurked through the night and devils through the day. 

I remember, I remember 
All the pleasant hills and valleys, the lovely landscape views, 

The rosy morn and evening suns, and charming twilight hours, 
When I could on the present smile, and on the future muse, 

Nor dream the future had of ills for me such storms and showers. 
My spirit then was full of hope, my heart beat strong and true, 

I had the poet's fevered brain, the artist's phrenzied eye ; 
So many organs called for use I knew not what to do, 

I thought I was not for this world, but with the young must die. 

I remeinber, Iremember 
The songs of the early red-breast and the bright blue-bird's note. 

The sparrows chirping in the hedge before the snows were gone, 
How clear the lark's sweet morning song would o'er the pastures float. 

How gladly bob-o-links would greet May's floral children born-: 
How pensively the warbling thrush, the wood-thrush then would sing, 

How loud the brilliant oriole would pipe his notes of love. 
How charmingly from soul of song the hermit's notes would ring 

The modest, timid, hermit-thrush, that any soul could move. 

I remember, I remember 
The " great pasture," with its birches, alders, and running brook. 

Where snares and traps I used to set for partridges and hares. 
How there I oft made truant tracks after the game to look. 

And often thought of stories told of children and the bears. 
The visions which I then enjoyed, the visions bright of youth. 

The pictures of my memory, too beautiful to last. 
The glorious hopes I cherished then, the dreams of love and truth. 

But all my youthful hopes and dreams unrealized are past. 



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